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Updated: May 11, 2025
Before she reached the bungalow the paddle-maker passed her at a trot, going towards the sea. She waited for three days, and then Victor Durnovo came again. Maurice was still away. There was an awful sense of impending danger in the very air in the loneliness of her position. Yet she was not afraid of Durnovo. She had left that fear behind.
He looked her slowly up and down with a glance of approval which alarmed and disquieted her. "Will you marry me?" he asked. "No!" His black moustache was pushed forward by some motion of the hidden lips. "Why?" "Do you want the real reason?" asked Jocelyn. Victor Durnovo paused for a moment. "Yes," he said. "Because I not only do not care for you, but I despise and distrust you."
"And the other fellow?" inquired Durnovo, with a backward jerk of the head. "Oh he is my servant." Durnovo raised his eyebrows in somewhat contemptuous amusement, and proceeded to open the letter which Meredith had handed him. "Not many fellows," he said, "on this coast can afford to keep a European servant." Jack Meredith bowed, and ignored the irony.
Durnovo smiled; but there was something behind the smile. He did not seem to approve of their meeting without his intervention. A little lurking secret of the blood, A little serpent secret rankling keen. The three men walked up towards the house together. It was a fair-sized house, with a heavy thatched roof that overhung the walls like the crown of a mushroom.
"If I had been a man I should have been half-way there by this time." "Where is Durnovo?" he asked suddenly. "I believe he is in Loango. He has not been to this house for more than a fortnight; but Maurice has heard that he is still somewhere in Loango." Jocelyn paused. There was an expression on Guy Oscard's face which she rather liked, while it alarmed her.
You're not capable of looking after a lady! I would have kicked Durnovo through that very window myself, only" he paused, recalling himself with a little laugh "only it was not my business." Maurice Gordon sat down forlornly. He tapped his boot with his cane. "Oh, it's very well for you," he answered; "but I'm not a free agent. I can't afford to make an enemy of Durnovo."
Whether he had really allowed himself to be dragged into the horrors of even a slight connection with the slave-trade she could not tell; but she knew the world well enough to recognise the fact that Durnovo had only to make the accusation for it to be believed by the million sensation-mongers who are always on the alert for some new horror.
"Come," he said more cheerfully, "tell me your news. Let us change the subject. Let us throw aside light dalliance and return to questions of money. More important much more satisfactory. I suppose you have left Durnovo in charge? Has Joseph come home with you?" "Yes, Joseph has come home with me. Durnovo is dead." "Dead!" Guy Oscard took his pipe from his lips.
At night he slept in the same tent, stretched across the doorway. Despite the enormous fatigue, he slept the light sleep of the townsman, and often he was awakened by Durnovo talking aloud, groaning, tossing on his narrow bed. When they had been on the march for two months piloted with marvellous instinct by Durnovo Meredith made one or two changes in the organisation.
But there was something different about Durnovo. He was not suitably got up. Your bar-room prospective millionaire is usually a jolly fellow, quite prepared to quench any man's thirst for liquor or information so long as credit and credulity will last. There was nothing jolly or sanguine about Durnovo. Beneath his broad-brimmed hat his dark eyes flashed in a fierce excitement.
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